The Universal Want's strengths lie in a series of inspired moments rather than it coming together as a satisfying whole.

It may not be the most unique and memorable of albums, but there's a lot in Boys and Diamonds to like; great thumping melodies, intriguingly mad vocals and moments of beauty (particularly the delicate drumming that closes the album) and shows that Rainbow Arabia are a band that have the potential to be far more interesting than their mundane origins would suggest.

The record stands as the most shocking thing the Odd Future collective has put out to date: a R&B record with crossover potential without sacrificing soul that creates a complete picture of its author, warts and all.

Fall Be Kind shows the band on the path to becoming an even mellower band and nothing here is exceptionally energetic except for the last half of Graze.

While not on par with essential solo Pollard fare like Not in My Airforce, Waved Out or From a Compound Eye this cohesive, flowing work motors by and, as always, his stirring songs reveal themselves and their riches through repeated listens.

Chasny reveals himself to be a guitarist capable of an admirable level of intensity, if not pure technical virtuosity.

Turner’s defense mechanisms are as honed and as vicious as his rather formidable bullshit detector has proven to be in albums past, and whatever Humbug lacks in middle fingers, or even thematic continuity, it makes up for with sinister gazes and scathing ambiguities.

When they let loose, like on the more intricate Bell Wheel, Darcy reminds us why he's such a compelling vocalist when he shows a more playful side. While they have their songwriting down to a science, Cola could elevate their craft with a little more disruption.

A pretty decent album with a lot of filler.

The biggest, brashest cartoon this side of Eminem's early albums.

It ebbs and flows, and in the end, Native Speaker is a satisfying, invigorating listen.

It does have some darker moments, but this is a record that is fun, invigorating and ultimately very catchy.

What Makthaverskan lack in variety they make up with a passion that cannot be quenched, and the dreamy undercurrent it carries throughout is filled with a shot of optimism that is undoubtedly contagious.

Although Yorke’s songwriting prowess is still very strong, this record is by no means perfect.

While Fantasy Empire is definitely still more of a tweak than a departure, when you’re still producing albums as monstrously savage and bewildering as this over 15 years into your career, those tweaks can still sound pretty damn significant on their own terms.

It sees the Cumbrian exiles embracing their maturity and demonstrating restraint, without scrimping on the songs.

Nothing Valley is an intense, hugely engaging listen.

It’s true that a band can only write about the same topics for so long, and it is nice to see Bonnette taking his lyrical approach in a new direction, but the lack of that intensely personal touch unfortunately makes the songs on Christmas Island far less relatable than the band's past catalogue.

The songs that make up Lazaretto are the most diverse on a White album since Get Behind Me Satan, and even more impressively, the songs themselves could stand alongside those on Icky Thump and Consolers of the Lonely thanks to the wonderful arrangements.... Of course, Lazaretto, for all the growth it shows from Blunderbuss, could never be as good as the work that White rattled off from roughly 2000’s De Stijl to 2005’s Get Behind Me Satan.

Most of Attack on Memory has an abrasive, shrewd backbone, but it's those moments where Baldi hones his sweet touch where the album finds a satisfying balance of surprise and comfort.

There’s nothing new here, but it’s a strange feeling of someone else repeating back what you’ve probably been thinking. Tempest acknowledges she’s not saying anything revolutionary, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth saying.

Millionyoung refrains from too many of the bombastic tendencies of electronic music as a result, and we're left with something quite listenable.

This latest offering from Fleet Foxes embodies their entire catalog of folksy sounds, seasons it with some jazzy elements, and pares down some bloat (only one track over five minutes). Perhaps the only surface flaw of this album is that certain songs build too quickly and fade too fast.

Yes, it’s been done before, but as much as there is to nitpick, there’s just as much to revel in.

All that being said, every track has at least something of interest about it, and with Obscurities managing to squeeze in fourteen of them in less than forty minutes, even the worst never outstay their welcome.

Overall, Amo is a strident record, difficult to categorize and, in a good way, uniquely spliced and sequenced with little fear of crossing boundaries--but part of mastering this dark art is knowing when to put the paintbrush down.

If you like your pop music with harmonies and heart then the Explorers Club could well have recorded the soundtrack to your summer.

Mellow Waves doesn’t immediately grab your attention like some of Oyemada’s past work, but his careful attention to craft remains intact.

While a lack of editing and consistency may keep neo from being better than promising, the energized rush of holding the void and hyper-melodic the sickness deliver two of the album’s best moments, the latter being the most successful synthesis of So Pitted’s want of strange and aggro.

My own axes aside this is a fun and highly commendable record; well produced and with some excellent pop songs in tandem with enough stratagem to be considered a real credit to the band: scattered hints of genius, however, are not the same as the real thing.

Wuthering Heights is a competent, glossy synth-pop work, with a handful of soaring highs that are offset by a couple of duds.

Despite some missteps (sadly, a few egregious ones), Some Loud Thunder is successful in displaying the group’s breadth of talent and ideas.

Cheatahs doesn’t make any great claims of originality, and it certainly doesn’t break any new ground. It just succeeds because it is what it is.

Guero is a record with lots of great ideas and some very good songs... but I can't help thinking that there's just something missing from this release.

In their dramatic interplay they find their lust for perversion and compulsion, as if exploring the infinite degrees of their relationship with the same piquant allure of Gainsbourg and Birkin (albeit less warm and more interpersonally brittle).

Into the Waves is an invitation to float. The mature lyrics and vocal performances in conjunction with the flow of disco-like melodies makes you feel like you're walking the fine line between fantasy and reality. It's a lovely indulgence.

Smalhans won't be the most memorable record of the year, but that's partly because its great strength is its subtlety, which makes it constantly refreshing.

It’s mostly a collection of decent tunes, polished to a blinding sheen.

Even if you've learned to appreciate the methodology of music, or lack there of, there are moments when too much misdirection can make you feel lost instead of dazzled. Nonetheless, this quintet from Leeds deserves at least one very enthusiastic thumb up for this compilation.

Despite being nothing original, Crimes of Passion comes off a good rehashing of the genre, making you rethink what Jesus and The Mary Chain's Just Like Honey really meant.

It's in how she alters her ghostly, choral-like voice that she's able to elevate her entire environment.

It’s conservative enough to satiate longtime fans, yet lovingly crafted to such a degree that it confuses you into thinking that its reached its full potential when it could've been so much more.

Purposefully ridiculous but brilliant.

Tracks like Nina and Part III give some motion to the album's swaying ebb and flow, while the intricate contours of Ghostride highlight how they craftily maneuver texture and groove. Nevertheless, there's also a hidden complexity behind Jinx's playful variations.

They've never let us down before, and they don't here, as frustrating as it is to hear the band fall just short of crafting something incredible. All the songs stand up, but the album loses steam and focus and begins to drag by the end of its 65 minute running time.

The cryptic nature of Moonshine Freeze impresses when at its uncompromising best, but it can occasionally underwhelm when she favors slimmer bare-bones arrangements. Still, these marked contradictions only reveal an artist who’s allowing herself to walk on a less purposeful path.

By the end of closer Thirsty Tulips, it should be no wonder that Mattimore is signed to Ghostly International, a traditionally electronic music label. She makes ambient music better than the music that most ambient musicians are putting out these days.

As far as the songs go, there’s not a bad apple in the bunch. And some, like Lavender and its wonderful one-note melody, or No Reason to Cry and its breezy vocals, are really terrific. But oooooh, the cheese in that sound.

OK, it’s a depressing mess, needlessly turning the existential dread-ometer up to 11. But hey, it’s got a nice tune and you can dance to it.

Beach Slang are well-aware that there are people out there who feel just as they do, and they reveal their allegiance through the power of a good ol’ rock song.

All in all, Instrumental Tourist offers more proof that these two are undisputed masters in their field, regardless of how necessary a collaborative effort like this really is anyway.

Ensemble Pearl is an album of perpetual drift, expanding upon the defining characteristics of droning or ambient music.

Of all releases, their latest is the most cohesive, lucid, and interpretable.

Granted, the band's debased, arhythmic songwriting sounds a little obnoxious, if deliberately so, but they sure know how to translate their disarray into compelling expressionist noise.

Even if 12 has its share of flaws, Sloan still manage to write one of their most proficient set of songs since 2008's faintly more exploratory Parallel Play.

While their more reflective and even pop-oriented moments keep the double album catchy and worth revisiting, this new avenue also affords a clearer view of Baroness' Achilles' heels, which are a propensity for predictable lyrics and an occasional Foo Fighter sappiness. But those flaws aren't terminal, and for the most part, Baroness takes us on a thunderous langskip ride through angry seas that is as addictive and thrilling as their past output.

Out in the Storm is perennially bright, with its melodies maintaining a serrated edge that ensures the sound remains robust, immersive and hard-hitting.

Mirror Mirror may be easier to admire, or more likely be creeped out by, than to love, but it marks an interesting turning point for Sons and Daughters, suggesting either that they've come to terms with the fact that they'll never be particularly successful and so are now happy to push themselves into darker territory, or that they're struggling and this may be their last gasp.

Is Ohms the return to form that meets expectations? Well, yes, even if the tunes haven't changed so much as the vastly-superior production has (with producer Terry Date back into the fold). But it also reinforces the fact that Deftones have stuck to a back-to-basics formula through all these years; the only difference now being that everyone else is taking notice.

Despite its faults, Channel ORANGE still marks Frank Ocean out as an intriguing and exciting artist. It's a contradiction in many ways: a far-from-perfect album that suggests a long and prosperous career; an artist without an exceptional voice who looks like he will instead become an exceptional voice.

Trust ends with Chapman pleading his object of affection to have some faith in him, though it could also be a message to his listeners: setting aside his lackadaisical manner, Chapman really does want you to care about what he thinks.

Goons Be Gone won’t go down as No Age’s best, but it benefits from its directness.

They play to a more jangle-pop register on the bouncy Public Bodies before bringing back the fuzzy guitars and haunting tones on What We Do It For. The only throughline here is that the songs themselves are interesting indie-rock.

Songs distort from their structures, allowing for a gelatinous cortege that serves to distinguish the album with flair and maintain a fetching edginess throughout.

All in all, it delivers the chuckles and a few guffaws, even if they are hitting up against the law of diminishing returns.

Operator is a very good debut, impressively original without becoming too inaccessible, and the debut single that dropped three years ago sounds as fresh and as authentic as it ever did.

Femme Fatale equips Britney with material which is strong enough to enable the original all-American Pop Princess to hold her own in such an overcrowded context.

BBNG have always been fluent and sonically articulate, but enlisting the talents of suitable vocalists to thicken their smokescreen strengthens their suit.

The storytelling on display is just as sharp and compelling—even if, from a musical sense, Edwards could've expanded on her radio-friendly arrangements a little bit more.

If In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights isn’t remembered as the peak of The New Pornographers' work, its heart is squarely where it needs to be—and is still head and shoulders above most of the choices we are presented with these days. Electoral or otherwise.

Earth Division is more interesting than satisfying, but it's difficult to dismiss its beauty and its reach past the band's comfort level.

It closes with the sigh of "Bramble," another one of the band’s well-crafted whispers that seems more like a lo-fi sketch than a fully realized song. In isolated moments like this Welcome Joy shines as a companion piece equal to their first release, "Invitation Songs."

Keep It Flowers is an edgy, brash, and well put together statement that mostly goes down easy.

PRODUCT is truly what you make of it - both highly addictive and somewhat unfinished, it leaves a good amount of open space for the listener to construct a set of vivid, imaginary images into something personal, even meaningful.

Champ sees Tokyo Police Club with a firmer grip on their sound, their vision, and their conquest; and although not destroying expectations, it makes good on a lot of the promises their earliest work showed off.

In substituting the ferocity of their debut for positivity, Eagulls have constructed a very good record that is arguably better than their well-received debut.

Perri needs to lean into the experimental nature of his work—take more risks, and avoid being so laid back that his ghostly melodies have all the impact of a polite, good-natured apparition.

Johnson and his bandmates shake off their anguish with sweeping, lighthearted melodies that, instead of weighing you down, lift you up.

The Woods is solid, well crafted and intensely energetic, but a magnum opus it is not.

On Offers, NE-HI never really commit to a major departure. So while there are glimmers of a new, more refined sound, it’s the carefree, guitar pop that still stands out.

Father of the Bride does succeed in a musical sense-it could've done without the sparse synth ballad 2012 or the bastardized bossa nova of Spring Snow, to give a few examples, but most of these instrumental curios reaffirm Koening's reflective, and possibly solitary, approach to get back into the flow of writing music.

Summer 08 is good work from Mount, and an album with its fair share of corking tracks.

There's a fluidity and looseness to White's approach on Fear of the Dawn, giving the impression he's having a good time kicking it with his buds in his garage.

Pop. 1280 are still concerned with the dark underbelly of the human experience, though the sneakily measured Paradise proves that even the most degenerate souls deserve some sanguine aggression, too.

The album finds Peter, Bjorn and John settling into a comfort zone that, while hardly groundbreaking, makes for intriguing listening.

They haven't changed their sound much, but more of the same is hardly a problem when it's this enjoyable.

Even though there aren’t any forcible tracks or extreme depth to this album, it captures an experience that should be played out entirely.

Every track is a potential hit, and Sia’s use of pure pop hooks, coupled with an astounding control over her rampant voice, makes this a very good record.

They just haven’t quite found the necessary depth to separate their clinical precision, an incredible feat considering Bagshaw concocted most of Sun Structures with bassist Tom Warmsley in his own bedroom.

Invigorated and with more purpose, Oldham feels the wholeness of family and unity. Whereas past projects lived in a state of flux, Oldham now feels settled and at ease. It does sound like he's found the "lightness," after all.

Despite how structurally disciplined it sounds as a whole, their chamber-turned new wave hybrid should suffice for those who couldn’t fathom it from front to back.

What's fascinating about their return in album form, Sixth House, is how they manage to pick themselves quite faithfully from their teetering anthemic force.

Vampire Weekend is indie rock with its edges sanded off, polished to a clean, sparkling sheen.

It’s not going to change the musical horizon, as there’s absolutely nothing new here. But the oldies – the hilarious Chicken Payback, the beautiful 50s ballad I Love You, or the exuberantly wonderful One Glass of Water – are strong enough to make this both a worthy successor and a promise for the future.

Overall, Lamb of God is a solid outing featuring a handful of tracks of potency with some genuine disaffection behind them, which shows the group has plenty left to say ten records in.

Fear Inoculum already feels like an event—It's the kind of grand statement that will equally delight and confound, where Tool allows themselves to highlight their technical prowess with uncompromising integrity. Though the lengthy tracks convey great character and complexity, it's best to experience its ambient soundscapes and strapping guitars with a full, uninterrupted listen.

TEEN still manage to come out strong and fully formed on their debut, with In Limbo proving to be the working man's take on dream pop.

Both cynical and biting, Nothing Feels Natural is a timely and involving call to arms that promises great things from Priests sooner rather than later.